[ExI] Social right to have a living

[Kelly Anderson]

2011/5/30 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> On 30 May 2011 20:18, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> The other day I met a fellow who's father was a very poor copper miner
>> in the Atacama dessert of Chile.
>
> And the head of a very minimal Jewish sect managed to found one of the most
> widespread religion in the world and be adored for centuries as a living
> god. Yes, it may happen, but anecdotical evidence in social sciences is
> exactly what obfuscates, rather than clarify, what actually happens.

But this is just a random guy I ran into last week. I encounter people
who have escaped poverty quite often. I haven't yet run into one
founder of a religion, although I once met a guy who claimed to have
founded a school of philosophy. :-)

I can think of twenty personal friends who have escaped third world
poverty by coming to the United States. It takes some luck, it takes
perseverance, but most of all, it takes a willingness to do whatever
it takes.

>> Part of becoming rich is wanting to become rich badly enough to do
>> whatever is necessary to do so.
>
> Indeed, but there are other ingredients to it, and commercial acumen is
> often a rather secondary one, even in societies which were founded, and are
> organised, around this far from universal idea.

There are a lot of people who are trapped where they are by
hopelessness, lack of knowledge, lack of initiative, attachment to
kinship relationships, and other things. Some of these can be
combated. Eventually, the overall richness of the earth will filter
down. For example, in Africa today, most people wear used western
clothing. It's not in good shape in many cases, but this is a case
where the abundance of the first world has filtered down. The
widespread access to a cell phone in Africa is another case. Africans
are as rich today as Americans at the time of the Mayflower, or
Europeans 200 years ago. This filtering down will continue, but they
will remain relatively poor compared to us for a very long time.

My point is, that you can't help Africa by sending them even half of
our money. They would not know what to do with it, and they would be
poor again very quickly. It's mostly a matter of education and
culture. Preserving many African cultures in the face of western
culture is a challenge, and more so with an influx of money and
western goods.

> Actually, beauty, physical performances, risk propension, leadership (as in
> organising revolutions and becoming king...) and sheer luck usually play a
> much greater role, even though by no mean they can be considered on the same
> level as pre-existing money in determining one's wealth.

I don't know what you mean by physical performances.

Risk aversion keeps a lot of people poor. How is social engineering
going to fix that? Perhaps genetic engineering could, but that's an
activity that is pretty far up the economic ladder, even when it's
available.

Luck plays a role, of course, primarily in who gives you a bit of
assistance when it's really needed. Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers
is a great introduction to this part of the success equation. Again, I
don't think any amount of social engineering can provide "luck".

-Kelly